Mets’ Dickey Becomes 1st Knuckleballer to Win MLB Cy Young Award

Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- R.A. Dickey of the New York Mets
paid homage to “the pantheon of knuckleballers” after becoming
the first Cy Young Award winner who throws a pitch that many in
Major League Baseball deride as a gimmick.

Dickey, 38, who became the Mets’ first 20-game winner since
1990, won the award as the National League’s best pitcher this
season. David Price of the Tampa Bay Rays claimed the American
League honor after leading that league in earned run average and
tying for the lead with 20 wins.

“It brings a real degree of legitimacy to the knuckleball
fraternity and I’m proud to represent all of them,” Dickey said
on a conference call. “I’m thankful to the New York Mets for
the chance to work on my craft and to perfect it.”

Dickey said he received 127 text messages and about 40
phone calls in the half-hour after he was announced as the
winner last night. He took one phone call, from Hall of Fame
pitcher Phil Niekro. He answered one text, from former Boston
Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield. Both threw the knuckleball.

Dickey, who had a 41-50 career record before going 20-6
this season with a 2.73 earned run average and an NL-leading 230
strikeouts, said the sports writers who voted him the award
showed baseball is about more than fastballs and sliders.

“They didn’t see the knuckleball as a trick pitch, they
didn’t see it as an illegitimate weapon,” he said. “They saw
it as a legitimate weapon to get big-league hitters out.”

It’s the fifth time a Mets pitcher has won. Tom Seaver was
the Cy Young winner in 1969, 1973 and 1975. Dwight Gooden
captured the award in 1985. Dickey is the first Mets pitcher to
win 20 games in a season since Frank Viola 22 years ago.

Scoreless Streak

“I was always looking for new ammunition to bring to the
mound, so I attempted the knuckleball,” Seaver said in a
statement released by the Mets. “It’s a very difficult pitch to
throw and, needless to say, I never mastered it.”

Dickey is the only active major leaguer who throws a
knuckleball, typically a slow-moving pitch that doesn’t spin,
making the ball move erratically. It’s difficult for hitters to
predict where the ball will go.

The right-handed Dickey went 13-1 to start the season, at
one point throwing 44 2/3 innings without allowing an earned run.
In June, he threw back-to-back one-hitters.

His performance was one of the few bright spots this season
for a Mets team that went 74-88 and finished 24 games behind the
NL East-winning Washington Nationals.

Dickey got 209 votes in balloting by the Baseball Writers’
Association of America. Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles
Dodgers, the 2011 winner, was second with 96 votes, three more
than Gio Gonzalez of the Nationals. Dickey received 27 first-place votes among the 32 ballots, which used a 7-4-3-2-1 scoring
system.

Tennessee Natives

Price, who like Dickey is a native of Tennessee, had an ERA
of 2.56 and posted a 20-5 record while being selected as an All-Star for the third straight season.

The 27-year-old left-hander had 153 points in balloting,
while Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers, who won the Cy
Young Award last year, was second with 149.

The four-point differential was the closest of any election
since voting for more than one pitcher was permitted in 1970,
the BBWAA said on its website.

“If you can ever be in any conversation with Justin
Verlander, you know you’re doing something right,” Price said
in a conference call. “I hope we can have more Cy Young races
like this.”

Jered Weaver of the Los Angeles Angels was third in the
voting with 70 points.

The last of the BBWAA’s annual awards will be announced
today when the Most Valuable Players in the AL and NL are
revealed.